A petition has been launched against the closure of a vital service for people trying to overcome alcohol addiction in the Huntingdon area.

Since launching on March 3, there have been 159 signatures from supporters dismayed at the potential closure of the Gainsborough Foundation, an innovative recovery service for people whose lives have been affected by alcohol misuse.

Set up in the area in 2008, it currently operates in 33 GP surgeries in and around the district and its website advice, information and forums are used by people all over the world.

Over the past eight years, Gainsborough has been funded by local commissioning groups Hunts Health and Hunts Care Partnership.

But as alcohol support services are now funded by Cambridgeshire County Council public health - which already has a service running called Inclusion in Cambridgeshire - Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has said it does not have the budget to fund both and Gainsborough is to close at the end of March.

Some of the main representatives pictured at the Rainbow Surgery in Ramsey. Assistant Director Nikki de Villiers and founder Nick Charles MBE and Teresa Weiler. (Image: Keith Jones)

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The online petition, which will be delivered to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, says: "Patients and their families are devastated by the news that the NHS is not going to fund Gainsborough this year despite the proven savings the service makes in alcohol related hospital admissions.

"Feedback from GPs, who now know that recovery from alcohol dependence is not only possible but probable with Gainsborough Foundation, is overwhelmingly in favour of retaining this unique, hugely successful and invaluable service.

"Patients’ letters of support and their accounts of the hope, amazing, empathetic and knowledgeable help they received are both heart wrenching and humbling."

Nikki de Villers chatting to a client (posed by actor). (Image: Keith Jones)

Chief Operations Officer Teresa Weiler, who launched the petition, said they were trying to reach at least 1,000 signatures.

"So many patients and loved ones said to us, 'surely you can at least try and appeal to Jeremy Hunt', so I agreed to try", she told the News.

"We've been running this service now for eight years and have proved along the way we're making huge savings but more importantly it's the human side of it.

"He now is saying he gets people every year fully restored, he sees more in a year then he saw in 20 years previously.

"My dream: we should change the way the funding works but the better reality is we just let people know this is a service that's being lost that's greatly valued by a very wide set of people and it will reflect in cost both in the NHS and other services.

"It's a short-sighted view - people trying to balance the books but it doesn't necessarily bode well for the future."

The unique service, run by former alcoholics, has about 200 patient referrals a year and sees a success rate of about 66 per cent of patients remaining sober after six months.

Writing on the petition, David Roberts said: "This service has changed the lives of several of my patients who would otherwise be in a sorry state, even dead."

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Emma Thoday wrote: "Gainsborough provide such an amazing service for both patients and their families. If it wasn't for the exceptional service that they provide our family would be in a very different position today. We cannot thank them enough for their patience and support."

And Mike Weiler said: "It is so shortsighted to stop funding this important service. The work of the Gainsborough Foundation saves so much money for the NHS, social services and prisons etc, who otherwise have to pick up the pieces."